America First, Last and Always!

Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee allowed all members of Congress to read a 4-page memo summarizing a cache of documents obtained from the Department of Justice. These were FBI and DOJ files which the Intel Committee had issued subpoenas for last summer. Last week Friday, the DOJ finally turned them over after much pressure. The contents of this memo are classified, however, a number of Republican Congressmen, such as Rep. Mark Gaetz (R-FL), are talking. Gaetz and others say that what they read shocked them and they are demanding that the memo and files be made public. The gist of the memo is that it ′names names′ and outlines how a group of FBI and DOJ officials have abused, and are still abusing, the FISA court in order to spy and undermine the election and administration of President Donald Trump.

FISA, or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, covers the monitoring and investigation of potential foreign spies and threats to the United States of America. One particular element of FISA is the rule known as 702, which allows for the electronic eavesdropping of foreign nationals. The 4-page memo allegedly may reveal a plot by a handful of senior FBI and DOJ officials during the Obama administration to conduct surveillance on the Trump presidential campaign. Furthermore, that nearly all of these government employees who are still employed by the FBI and DOJ, are continuing on ongoing plot to undermine the Trump presidency.

At the heart of this alleged plot is the infamous ′Dirty Dossier′, developed by former British MI6 officer, Christopher Steele on behalf of the American firm, Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS was hired by a lawyer representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and was funded indirectly through the lawyer by Hillary For America and by the DNC. The Steele dossier allegedly proposes that then Candidate Trump was a potential target for blackmail by the Russian government. That the Russians allegedly used this as leverage to ′collude′ with the Trump campaign to help him defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 elections.

However, none of the ′facts′ in the dossier have ever been proven, other than a minor detail that Carter Page, who briefly worked on the campaign brought in by his business partner, Paul Manafort, had taken a trip to Moscow while employed by the campaign. The trip′s purpose was to deal with business unrelated to the campaign. Yet, Both Steele and executives at Fusion GPS led many to believe, including some at the FBI and DOJ, that the dossier was authentic and truthful.

The FBI had been informed about the Page trip earlier in 2016 and they and the DOJ had attempted to obtain a FISA warrant to conduct electronic surveillance on him and others within the Trump campaign in July. However, in a rare event, the FISA court judge turned down the request, even though the threshold for such warrants is extremely low and refusals are extremely rare. But in August, Fusion GPS hires Nellie Ohr, wife of the 4th top official at the DOJ, Bruce Ohr. Steele meets with Ohr shortly after. Then Steele meets with with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok. Possibly with James Comey, too! Steele shows them the dossier he has compiled for Fusion GPS.

The dossier may have made the rounds other U.S. agencies, such as the CIA under John Brennan and with the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. At some point before October, the FBI and DOJ begin to consider the Steele dossier as being an intelligence source. In October, the DOJ and FBI go back to the FISA court to get a 702 warrant to eavesdrop on members of the Trump campaign, presumably based on the dossier. This time, the judge approves the warrant.

Mind you, this is all speculation, but based on earlier reports in the press and from some testimony to Congress. When the Republican Congressmen who have read the 4-page memo are asked about this chain of events, they do not discount nor confirm, but suggest that it may be accurate. Enough so to demand the release of the memo and associated documents to the press and the general public. Sometime within the next week, the House Intelligence Committee is expected to vote on the release. If it passes, and it should, then we may have the confirmation to prove that there has been an organized attempt to frame Donald Trump by the FBI and DOJ. We may also learn just high up the food chain this goes, perhaps to the White House and Barack Obama.

If all of this is true, then this scandal makes Watergate look like a prank. Those Congressmen who are talking say that from what they have read in the 4-page memo, this scandal shakes the very core of our democracy! That our government′s top law enforcement and intelligence agencies were used to assist one presidential candidate against her opponent. Obama has admitted that he had been informed about possible Russia interference in the 2016 election and that he had even told Vladimir Putin to ″cut it out″. Was the Steele dossier part of what Obama was told? Did Obama authorize the investigation by the FBI and DOJ to go forward against the Trump campaign? We also have the issue if the ongoing probe by Robert Mueller is part of the same plot to undermine President Trump? Is it also based solely on the Steele dossier?

With any luck, the 4-page memo and other FBI and DOJ documents will become public within the next week or two. Once that happens, we will know if this whole Trump-Russia probe has been as phony as it appears so far to be. Furthermore, it may well justify the firing of James Comey, who even now may be facing legal problems of his own for obstructing justice during the Hillary Clinton email investigation and for removing and leaking classified material. Once you clear President Trump of colluding with the Russians and for wrongly dismissing James Comey, there is no further justification for the Robert Mueller probe. In fact, those already charged by Mueller may be able to get those cases thrown out as they may have been based on the phony Steele document.

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